Blogs

The North Central Texas Fusion Center, a regional counterterror system owned by Collin County’s Homeland Security Department, appears intent on making intelligence stupid. In a secret “threat assessment” prepared for the Fort Worth Police Department’s Intelligence Division in December 2008, the center urged law enforcement officers to monitor people of “Middle Eastern appearance” at a college football bowl game in Fort Worth that month.

A portion of the threat assessment—stamped “Law Enforcement Sensitive” and part of a PowerPoint presentation—was inadvertently sent to the Observer as part of a broader open-records request. “Although the North Central Texas Fusion System analysis has found no specific intelligence to indicate any threats to the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl game,” the assessment states, “law enforcement officers should be on the lookout for suspicious individuals, especially those of Middle Eastern appearance.”

Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the ACLU, calls it a “horribly offensive and unconstitutional” invitation to racial profiling.

The document also warns that soccer teams from Mexico playing in the area “may be accompanied by Gulf Cartel members” and advises that “individuals motivated by anti-war or anti-defense industry issues may take advantage of the high-profile event.”

Another memo obtained by the Observer details a threat assessment for Pizza Hut Park, a 21,000-seat sports and entertainment stadium in Frisco. The report was written by Bob Johnson, the architect and operator of the fusion center, and son of U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson, a Plano Republican. It reads in part: “Foreign soccer teams from all over the world play at Pizza Hut Park. They can bring their local gang and political issues with them.” As an example, Johnson asserts that because Clube Athletico Paranaense, a Brazilian football team, has players from Columbia, it “may bring violence from terrorist groups (FARC) and drug cartels from Columbia … .” (The country’s name is Colombia.)

Scary stuff. But Johnson based his analysis largely on “various queries of the Internet,” he writes. He quotes from Wikipedia, a blog, and various newspapers and radio outlets, assigning each one a “credibility score” based on an evaluation of media bias drawn from EyeOnThePost.org, a Web site that accuses The Washington Post of having an anti-Israel slant.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that this is being disseminated as intelligence,” German says. “It’s no wonder that our intelligence is so dysfunctional. Somebody is reading a couple newspaper articles and then making these sweeping assumptions.”

It’s not the first time the center—one of 72 that have opened across the nation since 9/11—has courted controversy. Last February, as the Observer reported, Johnson sent a memo to more than 2,000 individuals (mostly law-enforcement personnel) stating that it was “imperative for law enforcement officers to report” the activities of local peace organizations and Muslim civil-rights groups.

I survived the Bush years by employing a simple mantra: “It’s best not to think about it.”

I would mutter this to myself whenever events of the day became too maddeningly nonsensical: Weapons of mass destruction, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, U.S. attorneys scandal, NSA wiretapping….It’s best not to think about it.

This week, for the first time in the Obama presidency, I’ve had to dust off the phrase and put it back to work.

Since the special election in Massachusetts last week — as I’ve watched the Democrats flop about trying to pass health care reform and do a good impression of dying fish on a boat deck — it seems once again that the people running the country have lost all common sense and perspective.

This time it’s liberal Democrats, who are stubbornly destroying an historic opportunity to pass major health care reform.

I’m not going claim that I like the reform bills. Like most everyone else, I can find a lot to dislike in the legislation.

But, as I wrote last week, we have to look at the big picture: 30 million Americans would receive health insurance. And the reform would represent a huge wealth transfer from rich to middle- and low-income Americans. The bill would save many lives.

There’s still a straight-forward way to salvage the bill and provide better health care for 30 million people. The U.S. House simply has to pass the Senate version.

No problem, right? After all, Democrats have a 78-seat majority in the House.

But apparently it is a problem. Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she can’t muster enough support in the lower chamber for the Senate bill.

The Washington Post reports:

Pelosi described her members as vehemently opposed to a provision that benefits only Nebraska’s Medicaid system, language added to win the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Also problematic are the federal subsidies the Senate would offer to uninsured individuals, which some House liberals view as insufficient, and the excise tax it would impose on high-value policies, which could hit union households.

So, let’s recap. Liberal Democrats in the House are willing to kill a once-in-a-generation reform that would provide health care to 30 million people for years to come because — drum roll, please — they don’t like the deal Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson struck, and the unions aren’t happy. Could they possibly have a smaller vision?

Is the Nebraska compromise fair? Of course not. But who really cares in the long run? If anyone thinks the Nebraska compromise is more important than the health of 30 million people (a population bigger than Texas’), they shouldn’t be serving in government. Besides, they can always come back and fix the problems later. Few large reforms are perfect from the start—just look up the history of Social Security.

A couple more points to consider. First, the House passing the Senate bill is the only sensible way forward. The other options seem ludicrous:

1. Start over. This has no chance. If you think this Congress can write and pass major health care legislation in an election year when they couldn’t do it in 2009, I’d like to buy you lunch.

2. Break apart the reform bill and pass it in chunks. This approach won’t work either. Major parts of the bill are unlikely to pass the Senate because of the filibuster. Doing it piecemeal makes no sense anyway. If you want to know why, read this Steven Pearlstein column from the Post.

3. The Senate could make its bill more palatable to the House. This is a bad idea. With a filibuster in place, the only way the Senate can change the current bill is through the budget “reconciliation” process. I won’t go into the details of what that is, but it’s essentially a strong-arm tactic that removes the GOP filibuster from play. First, it’s never good for the majority to trample the rights of the minority (when the GOP talked about doing the same thing several years ago, Democrats preached all holy holy about the sanctity of the filibuster). Second, it would be bad politics, and Senate Democrats clearly have no stomach for it.

4. Wait till after 2010 midterm elections and start again. Good luck with that. Republicans will be in a much stronger position in 2011. If they wait till 2011, Democrats better get used to the idea of health savings accounts again.

So if Democrats want to pass meaningful health care reform right now, moving the Senate bill through the House is the only option.

The question liberals have to ask themselves is not “do we like the Senate bill?” They clearly don’t. Rather, the question is, “do they like the Senate bill better than the status quo?” Because, right now, those are the options. Insure 30 million Americans or do nothing.

If they do nothing, realize that they will have passed up an historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity. (Have these people forgotten how out-of-power they were just four years ago?) It has been four decades since Democrats controlled the White House, U.S. House and 60 seats in the Senate.  It could easily be another 40 years (or longer) before this kind of moment comes around again.

So: is it really worth forgoing the best chance for progressive health care reform in decades because liberals don’t like the Nebraska deal and because the unions are nervous?

That thinking makes no sense to me.

If Democrats go that route and don’t pass a major health care bill, they will get slaughtered in the 2010 elections. And they’ll deserve what they get.

OK, deep breath now and repeat after me: It’s best not to think about it.

Until recently, the North Texas town of DISH (population: 181) was best known–if it was known at all–for changing its name from Clark in 2005 to score free satellite TV. The rebranding provoked ridicule from The Daily Show and complaints that corporate marketing had gotten out of control. But around that time, Calvin Tillman–then a town councilman and now mayor–began his crusade against a more powerful, and potentially destructive, corporate interest swarming his town: natural gas companies.

In five years, the gas producers have turned DISH into the epicenter of the Barnett Shale, seizing citizens’ land for pipelines, and building pollution-belching compressor stations and processing facilities on the edge of town. Gas companies also turned Tillman, a conservative, into perhaps the industry’s bluntest, and most effective, critic.

“We sold the name of our town to a corporation, essentially, but we’re not bought off by corporate America, and we’re not going to sell out and do something that would hurt our citizens,” Tillman says. Backed by townspeople who believe that gas pollution is killing horses, withering trees, and making people sick, the mayor has called on the industry to either clean up its act or leave.

Tillman has managed to get the industry-friendly Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to do something rare: take complaints about toxic air pollution from gas facilities seriously. Last year Tillman convinced the town council to pay for an air-quality study by outside experts. Released in September, the study was a bombshell. It showed the air in residential areas near compressor stations contained levels of benzene and other carcinogens and neurotoxins much higher than TCEQ limits. The results attracted national attention and forced the state agency to step up inspections and begin extensive air-quality studies of its own.

“This tiny little town spent 10 percent of their budget, and they did it so it would help everybody,” says Sharon Wilson, a North Texas activist who runs the blog Bluedaze: Drilling Reform for Texas. “That has been a major game-changer.”

Tillman’s outspokenness has not been greeted so warmly by the industry. Devon Energy Corp., a major gas driller, is threatening to cap all its wells in DISH, depriving the town of tax revenues, Tillman says. High-powered gas industry attorneys, he says, have not so subtly said they will sue.

This small-town mayor is not deterred. Someday, Tillman says, “I won’t be able to see, smell or hear these facilities. I may not get that tomorrow, I may not get that next year, but I feel very comfortable that I’m going to get it.”

If TCEQ disappeared tomorrow, would anyone know the difference?

Sometimes I wonder.

Here’s the latest: After years of citizen complaints about air pollution linked to the natural gas boom in Ft Worth, the agency finally did some air quality testing. TCEQ officials then told the Ft Worth City Council that the tests showed no harmful levels of pollutants. The council, which has been friendly to the gas companies, was evidently pleased; the mayor hailed the good news.

But, lo and behold, the test results came with a hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-insulting caveat:

This data is for screening purposes only and may include samples that did not meet the established quality control acceptance criteria. This data was not collected, analyzed, or reviewed using the documented quality assurance/quality control protocols defined in the Laboratory and Mobile Monitoring Quality Manual or those defined by the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference 2003.

In other words, the state’s “study” was as good as junk.

“That disclaimer is the most absurd statement I’ve seen in a very long time,” Alisa Rich, environmental scientist at Wolf Eagle Environmental, told the FW Weekly.

TCEQ’s excuse is that using certified labs would have taken too long.

Maybe the next time I do a story on TCEQ, I’ll include a fine-print disclaimer that says: “This story is for screening purposes only and may include facts that did not meet established journalistic standards. The information was not collected, reported or fact-checked by myself or an editor according to long-standing protocol as prescribed by the Society of Professional Journalists.”

Marc Katz revels in doing things a little differently. He’s best known for owning a New York-style deli in downtown Austin. Though he’s never held an elected position, he decided this fall to run for lieutenant governor of Texas, perhaps the state’s most powerful office. He began his campaign by mockingly naming deli sandwiches after his opponents. He will face two Democrats in the March primary, and if he pulls off the upset, will take on two-term Republican incumbent David Dewhurst, whom Katz deemed “baloney on white bread.”

Katz held his first big campaign event on Saturday night, Jan. 9, at Oilcan Harry’s, a gay bar in the middle of Austin’s thumping Warehouse District. There were some of the usual political trappings: balloons, bumper stickers, and a buffet well stocked with—what else?—deli meats. But the greeting table, where you could sign up for Katz’s e-mail list, was staffed by two shirtless, buff young men who had adorned their chests with Marc Katz stickers.

In a few hours, the club would be packed from mirrored wall to mirrored wall. But at 9 p.m., the place was still mostly empty. Katz and three or four dozen people milled about the marble-topped bar while techno and Top 40 blared. After Sean Kingston’s hit “Fire Burning” (“Somebody call 9-1-1/Shawty fire burning on the dance floor”), the music was cut, and Katz was introduced—first by his press aide and then by his friend Jennifer Justin. At that moment, Katz likely became the first major-party candidate for lieutenant governor to be introduced by a transgendered person.

Katz tossed aside his notes and spoke off the cuff for about 20 minutes. He talked about the need to improve education and expand access to health care. But he returned again and again to same-sex rights and gay marriage. “It says nowhere in [the Texas Constitution] … that we can’t have the rights of anybody else,” Katz said. “[The right to get married] is not something we should have to fight for … . Our sexual preference or what we do in bed or what we lust for has nothing to do with our health insurance. It has nothing to do with our benefits. It has nothing to do with nobody else’s business but our own!”

It seemed for a moment that Katz—a wealthy businessman who has promised to pour millions into the race—was about to launch a single-issue campaign based around gay rights, which few politicians in Texas have had the courage to defend in recent years. In an interview after his talk, Katz wouldn’t quite go that far. He said the central theme of this campaign would be “human” rights, which includes gay rights, but also those of all minorities in Texas.

Asked which minorities he belongs to, Katz paused for a long moment and said, “I’m a religious minority.” (He’s Jewish.) Asked more specifically if he’s gay, Katz responded, “My sexual preference is nobody’s business. Let’s talk about the issues, not about whether Dewhurst wears makeup.” Then he laughed and added, “If you print that, I’ll love you forever.”